笔记：SEP“Agency”词条

Agency: the exercise or manifestation of the capacity of act.

The standard conception construes action in terms of intentionality.

The standard theory of action explains the intentionality of action in terms of causation by the agent’s mental states and events.

1. Introduction

Anscombe and Davidson.

2. Conceptions, theories, and kinds of agency

Two claims of the standard conception:

(1) The notion of intentional action is more fundamental than the notion of action.

(2) There is a close connection between intentional action and acting for a reason.

The standard conception and the standard theory: The standard conception is not committed to a particular account of what it is to act intentionally and for reasons, and it is not committed to a particular account of the nature of reason explanations. It is important to distinguish the standard conception from the standard theory, which provides a causal account of intentional action and reason explanation.

2.1 Agency as intentional action

The most serious problem for this standard theory has been the problem of deviant causal chains.

Some have argued that this view altogether fails to capture agency, because it reduces actions to mere happenings.

2.2 Agency as initiation by the agent

According to desire-belief versions of the causal theory, initiation by the agent consists in causation by the relevant desire-belief pairs.

According to more recent versions, initiation consists in causation by the relevant intentions.

An alternative conception of agency: The initiation of action consists in irreducible agent-causation, others appeal to uncaused mental acts of the will.

2.3 Agency and distinctively human action

略。

2.4 Agency without mental representations

Three challenges to the standard theory:

(1) There are non-human beings that are capable of agency and that do not possess representational mental states. （一个回应：区分人类的intentional agency和有机体的mimic agency）

(2) There are many instances of human agency that can and should be explained without the ascription of representational mental states. (回应：(1) The standard theory does not require that the agent considers the relevant mental contents in conscious deliberation or reasoning. (2) the standard theory is compatible with explanations of habitual actions in terms of motor schemata (or motor intentions) (3) most instances of skilled coping do not occur in an intentional vacuum.)

(3) All instances of agency can and should be explained without the ascription of representational mental states. ( 回应：权衡未来，推理等等需要心理表征。)

2.5 Other kinds of agency: mental, shared, collective, relational, artificial

The standard theory: intentional agency.

Higher or more refined kinds of agency: such as self-controlled, autonomous, and free agency.

More basic kinds of agency that do not require the ascription of representational mental states.

Further kinds of agency: mental agency, shared agency, collective agency, relational agency, and artificial agency.

3. The metaphysics of agency

3.1 Three metaphysical frameworks

event-causal approach: agency is to be explained in terms of event-causal relations between agent-involving states and events. We may call this a reductive approach.

agent-causal approach: agency is to be explained in terms of a kind of substance-causation: causation by the agent, construed as a persisting substance. This framework provides a non-reductive account.

volitionist approach: agency is to be explained in terms of acts of the will or volitions. Volitions themselves are entirely uncaused and they are sui generis acts. This is also a non-reductive approach to agency, but it rejects the suggestion that all actions are events with a certain causal history.

3.2 Deviant causal chains

3.3 Disappearing agents, naturalism, and dual standpoint theory

3.4 Actions, events, processes, and omissions

4. The sense（感觉） of agency

Three main positions:

(1) Wegner’s view: the sense of agencyarises when we interpret a conscious intention to perform a certain action as its cause.

(2) Comparator model of motor control: the motor control system uses copies of motor commands in order to generate predictions of the ensuing bodily movements.

(3) A hybrid of the first two: distinguish between a basic sense of agency and post-act judgments concerning one’s agency.

5. Empirical challenges and the role of consciousness

略。